What If
by Haberdashing
Summary: Avarice AU fic. Ford asks Stan to use his omniscience.


"You know practically everything now, right?"

Stan looked up from the television, which was currently playing a rerun of one of the better Ducktective episodes, and over at his brother. Ford's gaze was serious and determined, his mind clearly occupied with something other than the quacking animal on-screen.

"Not everything." Stan corrected. "But… most things. Why? What's going through that big ol' brain of yours?"

"Could you tell me what would have happened if… if during Weirdmageddon- during the Transcendence, you hadn't… hadn't, er…"

Stan knew what Ford meant, and not because of any fancy omniscience stuff, either.

"Sure, just give me a sec."

The world around him faded away as Stan's mind delved into the realm of what might have been.

 _There was a universe where Weirdmageddon was averted before it could start, and people went about their lives never knowing of the apocalypse that might have been, and Stan and Ford ran the Mystery Shack together until Stan died of a heart attack in 2038-_

 _There was a universe where Bill Cipher was stopped by a circle of people holding hands, and Stan was fatally run over by a truck packed with tourists in the summer of 2016-_

 _There was a universe where Weirdmageddon was ended by a shaking Ford holding a memory gun, and Stan and Ford sailed around the world on a boat just like their old childhood dream, and they lived a good long life before passing away peacefully in their sleep, dying within a few days of each other in 2048-_

 _There was a universe where Weirdmageddon was ended by a shaking_ Stan _holding a memory gun, and Ford never fully returned to his old self, but Stan dutifully looked after his brother until they both died in a house fire in 2020-_

"Stan?"

 _There was a universe where Dipper was the one turned into a demon, and Stan somehow ended up raising the kids, and he made it all the way to 2059 before passing on in the middle of the night-_

 _There was a universe where Mabel was turned into a demon, and Stan was diagnosed with cancer in 2031 and refused help both magical and medical because he figured he'd had a good long life already, and his untreated cancer took his life a scant six weeks later-_

 _There was a universe where Ford became a demon, and Stan was killed nine months afterwards by a reckless cult, and the whole world learned of his passing at the same time as it learned that the demon Pollux was not one to be trifled with-_

"Stan, it's alright, I don't need to know that badly."

 _There was a universe where Stan died during the Transcendence- no transformation, no demon business, just straight-up death, and hell, in a way that simplified things- and he got a nice big funeral out of the deal, and a gravestone way bigger than Ford's, though he wasn't there to appreciate it-_

 _There was a universe where somehow, miraculously, nobody died or transformed during the Transcendence, but most of those who had lived through it, Stan included, kicked the bucket in 2023 when a particularly ambitious young demon decided to make Gravity Falls its new home, slaughtering its existing residents in the process-_

 _There was a universe where Bill Cipher still vied with Stan for control of Stan's own mind and body, but instead of Stan winning the fight outright the two were magically merged into one, human form and demonic energy bound together during the course of the fight, creating a horrific amalgam of a being that was as much Bill as it was-_

" **Stanley!"**

And in an instant, Ford's voice brought Stan back to the here and now, to what was rather than what could have been, to the walls that were now devoid of color save for a pool of orange liquid oozing onto the floor.

Whoops.

Stan shrugged in an attempt at nonchalance. "Gimme another can of beer and I'll fix that for you."

"You should be able to fix it for free, you did it in the first place…"

Stan shook his head vigorously, a deep frown forming on his face. "Nuh-uh. Can of beer. Them's the rules."

Ford hesitated, then sighed and ran to the kitchen, tossing a can of Old Canoe beer into Stan's outstretched hands before settling back into position.

"There we go." Stan snapped his fingers, returning the color to the walls and removing the liquid from the floor, then cracked open the beer and downed half of it in one motion. "Ah, that's good. Old Canoe and Ducktective, the perfect combination. Sometimes I can't believe I watched this shit sober."

"So, Stanley… what was it you saw before?"

Stan took another big swig of his drink before responding. "Lots of stuff. Nothing important, really. It is what it is, you know? What happened, happened."

Ford looked over at Stan for a long minute before shrugging and turning up the volume on the television.

"If you say so."


End file.
